Page 71 of A Lady’s Guide to Fae Kings
“Lachlan, I am cross enough to set your hair on fire.”
“I can handle it.”
“I might burn a book!”
He inclined his head. “You might.”
He was so coldly serene, so confident in his powers. A king. She dearly wanted to throw one of the books at his head. She might have, had even a single one of them not been less than a hundred years old or stitched together with literal moonbeams and spider silk.
And at the same time, warmth pooled low in her belly, a melting heat that burned solely because he was near.
The rest of her was far more worried about a different sort of fire.
She took another step back, remembering the smolder of Mrs. Pettigrew’s favorite work apron, the sugar burning in canisters a floor below her. The smell of charred paper. Her throat felt hot.
“Pippa?” Lachlan stopped her with just her name. Stern, disapproving. Unshakeable. “You can do this.”
She swallowed, picturing the relentless waves of the sea, silver rain, ice inside her ribcage. The iron cuff was still too tight and uncomfortable, but it no longer felt as if it were made from needles and knives. “Don’t light any candles,” Pippa whispered.
“A fair bargain,” Lachlan replied.
She sipped at her tea from a cup painted with moths. It was hot and strong and perfect and felt important in a way that it should not. “I had no idea someone with such a fearsome reputation could make tea,” she said.
He leaned against one of the disorganized shelves. “I trust you’ll keep my secret.”
“I have heard that, along with tossing ladies into an oubliette, you once ordered your students to swim with kelpies or fail your class.”
He snorted. “Hardly.”
“It did seem rather out of character.”
“Know my character, do you?”
She thought she was starting to, for all his contradictions and enigmatic nature. “Did you freeze a famous visiting scholar in the courtyard fountain? True or false?”
“What do you think?”
She tilted her head, considering. “True.”
He inclined his head in agreement.
“Did you really?” she gasped.
“He was unpleasant,” he replied, nonchalantly. “My turn.”
“Very well.” She carefully wiped dust off a leather-bound book. The top of the spine needed mending.
“Did you climb the tallest ladder with a wobbly wheel to corner a drunk pixie because everyone else was too scared to even make the attempt?”
“False.”
“Hmm.”
“You don’t believe me?” Pippa asked.
“I do not.”
“It was not our tallest ladder,” she muttered, caught. Pixie bites often festered. Dealing with them was not a task anyone was keen to do. “And how did you even know about that?”
